That's my mom's dad. My mom's parents split up very early in her life, and contact had been lost. My mother heard that he had remarried and had a couple more children. My mother invited him to her wedding, writing to the the last known address, but never heard back from him.
As we found out much later, her dad was already dead at the time of her wedding. We figured that out from an inquiry to Social Security.
My mom died a few years ago. But recently my brother Mark and his wife and I finally dug up enough information to track down my mother's half-siblings, a brother and a sister, who are still alive.
The internet is a cornucopia of confusing data, but we sifted through it. It didn't help that my grandfather had a fairly common name - Harold Wright.
My brother Bill, who lives in the Bay Area, met the other night with our long lost aunt who lives in the same area. He found her very charming. She provided the photo above, which is the only color photo I've seen of the man. It was taken shortly before his death, at 46, of a heart attack. He was working long days as an executive at a plant where they made aircraft engines during World War II. He came into work, didn't feel well, and died at the office.
I'm sure my mother would have liked to meet
her siblings, so this ending's bittersweet.
